Unbelievable

Im speechles. The item is far more than I expected. I can't believe what I'm got for the great price. But I am even more impressed by the customer service. Best experience ever.

Remarkable

Absolutely stunning. A previous review compared it to the mbox 2, and they were spot on with it being described as an "upgrade". It's almost scary how much better this thing sounds just right out of the box. Not sure if it's the preamps?...but it sounds amazing. The direct monitoring is a great feature, and it has plenty of output power! I ran a guitar direct through 1 channel while using a variety of amp sims, and if it made the guitar sound so much better, I can only imagine what it can do for vocals.
An interface that should be twice the price. And it took me under 5 minutes to setup and get things running.
Perfect!

Just what I needed

Been cutting tracks with this for a few weeks and am quite pleased. Great that it's buss-powered! Bass, acoustic guitar, vocals all sound amazingly clear (transparent?) with very little, if any, noise that I can detect. Gear at this price usually has knobs that are unusable much past 12 o'clock. These pre's reside very nicely in the 3-4 o'clock range and even higher. I think some people who get this piece might have to rethink the gain staging in their DAW to reflect the more pro sensibility of these preamps. In other words, they're SMOOTH all the way through and oozing with quality.

For a home studio, I find the headphone output to be more than adequate but, again, don't be afraid to run the gain higher than you're used to. It might not be enough, though, for a really loud drummer using open-back headphones or a cheap pair of Skull Candy earbuds.

Latency was very low using the Focusrite ASIO4ALL driver and I haven't even used the direct monitoring feature. I use reverb and compression in Reason real-time and have not tried the plug-in suite. But with great pro-sounding preamps, very low-latency, buss power and a highly mobile footprint, the 2i2 is just what I needed.

Portable and Reliable

I bought this to replace my M-Audio FastTrack Pro. I was tired of the M-Audio's buggy driver for that unit and general mediocre sound. The Scarlett 2i2 has functioned perfectly. It's sounds great, and it feels much solid than the all-plastic FastTrack. The FastTrack could also be rather noisy when the gain was turned up. The Scarlett is virtually silent and sends a nice clean signal through its rear outs. The lights surrounding the gain knobs makes a nice visual bonus. Overall, I'm very please.

shweeet interface

this thing is awesome, easy to set up, the plug-in sweet is amazing, since this is my first interface and im new to home recording im using ableton live lite 8 as my DAW and it is so awesome and came free with this thing! i couldn't be happier.

WOW!!!!

This is FREAKING!!! Fantastic its great.

Absolutely Awesome Interface!!

This is a absolutely awesome interface!! I've been a Pro Tools user for many years now and I can honestly say that this little box sounds WAY better than my M-Box 2 ever did!!

I upgraded from my M-Box 2 to the Scarlett 2i2 (yes that's right, upgraded) with the intention of only using it as a traveling interface for when I'm on the road but this little red box sounds so good it will be used as my main interface until I can get my Saffire Pro 40 later this year.

The preamps make all my microphones sound great. I hear things in my music I couldn't hear with my M-Box 2 and it works flawlessly with Reason 6 and Studio One 2 (my new DAW's of choice) the latency is insanely low and the drivers are rock solid on my laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit.

There's a reason this is Sweetwaters most popular USB interface... no other interface gives you the sound that the Scarlett 2i2 does in or out of its price range and the Scarlett plugins are awesome too. (note: the Scarlett plugins only work in 32bit DAW's but Focusrite says they will be adding 64bit support soon)

Focusrite has great customer service both when I called them prior to making my purchase through Sweetwater and via Facebook when I posted questions on their wall. Get this interface now!!

Bang for your $$$

The Scarlett 2i2 is a great interface for the price and even better than many that cost more. I use mine mainly for tracking guitar and vocals. It integrates perfectly with Pro Tools 10. The pre's sound great, there is no latency and if for any reason you experience it, there is a handy direct monitor feature built in. What was most surprising to me was the Digital to Analog converter. The quality is beyond exceptional. I like to use the interface as a playback device through my Macbook Pro into my monitors. The design of the interface itself is sleek and looks great, as well as durable. Focusrite doesn't have the best tech support but Sweetwater fortunately does. A GREAT product at a GREAT price!

Works Great with my Guitar

This is my first audio-interface, so I can't compare it with anything else but after playing my guitar on this I have no reason to try another one. Works perfectly! Can't wait to get my microphone hooked up to this. Plus the service here at sweetwater was great! Arrived on time and they even called to let me know when it was coming.

Very Pleased With Scarlett 2i2's Superb Sound Quality!

I don't know how valued my opinon will be, for this is only my second interface. I did own a E-MU 1616m which I loved, but I purchased a new laptop which didn't have a notebook card slot so E-MU was not compatible to make a long story short. I researched within a limited price range for over-all sound quailty when pursuing this purchase. I watched a lot of YouTube videos from both the manufacturers & customers on tons of the latest & greatest interfaces. There's a lot of great prodcuts out there, so when I had narrowed down my selection, I must say, Focusrites's Scarlett 2i2 just stood out with its overall sleek design, quality & unbeatable price(Thanks Sweetwater!). I have been a hobbyist musicain for over a decade, as well I dabble in some song productions with local artists in my area, so quick setup is essential to capture the mood at its peak, the Scarlett 2i2 is great for this, no AC adapter just plug it in a USB port, then plug in your MIC and your ready!!! The overall sound is rich, warm & very, very clean. I was shocked at its superb quality. The Focusrite Scarlett Effects Suit(Compressor, Gate, EQ, & Reverb) are high quality plug-ins, a great added bonus, they allow you to get the most out of the interface with tweaking in those just perfect vocal settings. I have had NO latency problems; it just plain works great!!! I'm using with: HP ENVY14 Beats Edition, Windows7 Ultimate, Intel i7 proccessor @ 1.82 GHZ with turbo boost, 8GB RAM, Studio Projects B1 MIC, FL Studio 10(Fully Loaded), Both Korg microKONTROL & padKONTROL & everything is running great!!

Great Product at a great price.

I travel a lot and sometimes just for vocal comps on the fly or quick song idea. and for this purpose with my macbook pro and protools it is the ideal Mate, of course a solid mike to match focusrites mic pre's is recommended. The size is great and i like that it is solid metal box !

Scarlett 2 x 2

I have owned a ton of different interfaces and currently use a Duet 2 with a Mac as my main interface, but still needed a 2x2 for PC as well. The price was right on the Scarlett (how do they do it?) and it seemed like a great, simple little unit. I love it. It is light, but seems tough. It is great looking, and provides all of the fundamental features you need, including 0 latency monitoring. But, in truth, I am writing this review to let you know that the Scarlett Plug In Suite that comes with this FOR FREE, which is also on Sweetwater as a standalone piece of software for 99 bucks, is worth the price of the Interface alone. The plug ins are absolutely awesome. How awesome? I replaced every singe reverb plug in on a current project tonight with the Scarlett plug in, and the new presets I made from those will be my go to reverbs every time I start a project. Really great interface, really great plug ins. For 150 bucks. Amazing. Focusrite!

Awesome!

Purchased this the day of it's release. Solid frame to it with sturdy knobs and switches. Enough inputs for what I use it for which is recording vocals. Setup was easy! I was up and going within 5 minutes. Really crisp recording due to it's pre amps. LOVE the separate monitor and headphone volumes.

he only downfall is the length of the USB cable...it's very short could be slightly longer. And I noticed the headphone volume isn't as loud when monitoring vocals during recordings. I'm sure there's a way around this but just what I experienced during my use with the interface.

All in all you can't beat this price....well worth it and affordable!

Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 - Too Good to Pass Up !

Blown away doesn't begin to describe it. My Sweetwater Rep alerted me to this new device, and I have never regretted buying it. First off, it is small and totally rad, metallic red with an amazing look and feel to it. So durable, well-designed, and well thought-out. If you're a solo artist like me and don't want to pay extra for all of those additional inputs that you don't need, this is a killer deal. It also comes bundled with 4 world-class Scarlett Plug-ins, and Ableton Lite Live 8. All for a price that is just hard to even believe. The pre-amps alone in this unit are worth it. I cannot imagine anything even costing 3-5 x's more that offers a better value, more flexibility, and is easier to set-up and use right out of the box. Seriously, few products ever fully deliver as advertised. This one will exceed your expectations. Nothing else like it around for the price. I have explored, owned, and/or researched most all of the I/O's in the $100-$750 category. Get it, if it fits your situation. You will never regret it !

NEW Focusrite Scarlett 2i2

The Scarlett 2i2 is absolutely amazing and so durably designed. It is simply a stunning, small red metallic finished inteface from Focusrite, and truly an astounding value. The preamps are so worth the money alone, but then you also get four incredible Scarlett plug-ins bundled with this package: EQ, Gate, Compressor, and Reverb, plus Ableton Lite Live 8. The plug-ins are renowned for a reason. How can you beat this package at the price anywhere? If you only require two ins and outs that will accommodate an instrument and/or XLR input, you need look no further. This package is beyond belief! Plus, it is so well built, easy-to-use and set-up. You just will never regret the investment. I don't know what else to say, but there is just nothing even close to this I/O for even 3-5 x's what it costs.

First Home Audio Interface

I'm a saxophonist, bass guitarist and a music teacher and wanted something I can move around. At $150, I was unsure if I was getting. I installed the drivers into my iMac, plugged it in, opened up Garage Band and switched the inputs and outputs to the 2i2. Everything worked perfectly. All of my instruments sound great and I can play along with my fake books and there's no latency at all. Everything is on the front and easy to adjust and control. The halo lights on the front is really helpful with clipping/distorting. Also, the service at Sweetwater is the best. I accidentally order a USB mic and they called me to let me know I had a USB mic and help me get the right condenser mic. Everything was also at my door in 3 days!

Excellent interface for the money!

For $149 you can't beat this little unit. The pre's are nice, the aluminum unibody is very sturdy. I've recorded vocals with the unit and did a video review on youtube for it and it performs very well. Definitely worth every penny. The ISA One is next on my list.

Feels sturdy, Looks good, Sounds profesional = No disapointment

At first glance i was skeptical, as i have bought many disappointing interfaces over the years. But this little bad boy is nice! I wasnt expecting it to be so compact either. Its something you could definitely travel with without having to sacrifice sound quality. If you dont need that many outputs then this thing is perfect for you. I use it with my NI Maschine so it helps with the latency as well. I really have nothing bad to say about it. The price is right, plus the extra Scarlet plugins they include for free are well worth it alone. I literally set this thing up in 5 minutes, no problems at all, totally dummy proof. if your thinking about buying one go for it, your going to love it.

Just what I was looking for!

After some research and considering my budget of around $200, I decided to try the Scarlett. I have used a lot of different I/O DAW devices with connections like USB, firewire, PCI cards with break out box. I read reviews that others liked the Focusrite Saffire 6 with 1.0 USB, so thought this upgrade with USB 2.0 would be even better and for the price I was right on. Easy installation and super sounding. latency is really what I was trying to overcome and this has done it nicely, with the bonus of smooth sounds

Literally, PERFECT

I bought it just few days ago.

For home recording, it is just perfect.

beautiful, compact, useful, nice quality. Just perfect combination.

No words need.

I recommend you guys for home recording.

Works Well, Except....

When I unpacked this I downloaded the latest drivers and plug-in's, then plugged in this unit to do a test recording. I use Sony Sound Forge Pro 10. With this device and using the default settings of 44.1K @ 16 bits, I get a distorted recording. Same setting with Audacity and it works great. Set Sound Forge to 24 bit or higher and it works great, but for some unknown reason it distorts at 16 bit ONLY (so far) with Sound Forge Pro 10.

Tech support wanted me to do a ton of changes which I won't do as I've never had a problem using any other USB interface. BTW, it does the same thing on my laptop as well.

Having said that, I've done several hours of recording (at 24 bit or higher) and love this little box. Plus it's really pretty. The glow indicators around the input level controls remind me of the old "cat-eye" VU meter system. Enjoy!

Beautiful...

Needed something quick and cheap after my 1820M finally went south. Was not expecting this level of detailed, quality sound. I'm playing an acoustic w/a Seymour Duncan soundhole pickup through it and it sounds friggin' gorgeous! I don't need to run it through an amp sim anymore to get the sound I'm after. Soaring, clean highs from these preamps! Haven't recorded any vocals yet but I know I'll be smiling from ear to ear. Way better than the 1820M's pre's.
The Scarlett plugs too are so much better than I expected. Like through the roof better than I expected. The Reverb is so lush and beautiful. It's hard to get surgical with the EQ and Compressor because there's no graphic display, but they sound so sweet it's easy to dial in a gorgeous, shimmering tone. These are the best sounding plugins I've heard in a long time. Trust me, the reverb and compressor alone will have you grinning like a Cheshire cat. If you don't need the interface, you at least need these plugins.

Nice unit

Works perfect in macos. Preams sounds natural. My only issue is i could not get sampling rates changed in windows. provided ASIO is useless. Except this, this would perfect choice below $200

Overly satisified

This with Ableton and pair of Adam-A7X's.... Hyper-accurate sound....

Great interface

I am newie in home recording, I was looking for an interface easy to use and great quality sound, well this little thing fits the bill, I ordered on Friday , got it Saturday morning and was recording five minutes later, zero lactancy.

Very happy with the 2i2

This is my first interface. I'm an amateur musician using Garageband on a MacBook Pro for home recording. It's very easy to use. Simply plug into the USB and you're off. Sort of. The documentation was a little weak in terms of set-up for a beginner like me. That said, I was running my guitar through it and recording within 20 minutes. I haven't explored the software plug-ins too much yet, but so far they are great as well.

Great product for the price

I needed a relatively inexpensive portable unit for a small project I was working on. Ryan Sloan (my sales rep) recommended this unit. This unit is great. Plays nice with my mac laptop. Sounds great. Easy to use.

In my opinion, if you want the best, buy an Apogee Duet. That's a fantastic unit. But for a different price point, this Scarlett 2i2 is really, really good.

An added bonus is the Scarlett Plug-In Suite that comes with this unit. The Plug-Ins work well with both GarageBand and FCP X.

Thanks for the recommendation, Ryan! (He's a great guy to work with ... always steers me in the right direction.)

If you have low budget

Something under 200,
buy this
better than mbox, apogee

Slick little interface!

Bought this to replace a working M-Audio Fast Track Pro.
Can't really tell an audible difference but I bank on the Focusrite name to be a bit quieter than the M-Audio. I like it's simplicity, small size and it's price. And the pretty red metal case is quite slick too!

Great for stereo recording and multi-track

I bought this on the recommendation of my Sweetwater sales associate. He made a great suggestion. Very low self-noise and transparent. I have used it to track an acoustic demo & record vinyl to hi-res audio 24/96 and everything worked well in windows vista using both mixcraft and wavelab. This is the first Focusrite product I've owned and the build quality appears solid and simple, meaning straight foreword and elegant. I haven't used the external monitor feature yet but headphones provided the promised low latency.

Scarlett 2i2

I relied on the advise of my salesman on this purchase. This unit worked exactly as he said it would. Biggest bang for the fewest bucks! The main reason I keep coming back to Sweetwater is my salesman, Greg Savino. Greg is like an old friend, he knows me, my needs, and the applications that I use my gear in. If I do have a problem with anthing, no worries; Greg always takes the time to help me solve any problems. He goes out of his way to help me in every way he can..... that is the reason he seems more like a "friend on the inside" than just a salesman.

Great.

Great interface. No Midi and the driver could be better. Other than that this thing is great.

Great Audio Interface...

At first I was a little nervous since I was using a MAudio interface....But now I will not use anything else...!
It is awesome, but would just like to have the option of being able to reduce the incoming mix sound into the 2i2..
Love the peak color change.....

good product

bought this for my sons birthday. must work as expected cause I've heard no complains.

Simple Device - Great Sounding Preamp

Exactly what it looks like - inexpensive simple interface with great sounding mic preamps. Has worked great so far - love the sound.
My only wish is that there was a way to adjust the level of the zero latency feed from the preamps to the headphones. There is no level control - just on and off.

Great unit once you get it to work.

I bought this unit to replace a 1xlr, 1 line input M audio fast track. I needed an interface with just two channels that had two xlr inputs with phantom power for stereo recording. I love the sound of the unit but it took me a while to get it configured. I cannot use the focusrite driver within Pro Tools. I have to use the ASIO4All driver, which works great. I have contacted tech support and they know of the issue. Of course, using the ASIO driver is perfectly fine, Its inconvenient that the Focusrite driver did not work.

Focusrite Scarlett 2i2

Purchased this to record from a tape deck to a computer. Works just fine. This is my first use of this type of device, so a comparison isn't possible, however, I'm very pleased with the results. Very simple to use too!

Good Mic Pre's

I just got this AI to upgrade from an old m-audio mobilpre that I've had for 5 yrs. For the price range this is a great product. I did some tests with some old recordings, and finally understand what people mean when they say the mic pre's are cleaner. I did have some initial issues with the driver setup as it seems to be very picky about what other usb devices you have plugged in while using the card. Everything else seems to work as it should. The construction on some of the switches feel flimsy, and I noticed a weird issue when switching from direct monitoring to off made the output to my monitors louder. I'm not sure I could ask for a lot more for the price as I am using this mainly for a decent A/D converter and mic pre.

Issues with hot pickups

Per case opened with Focusrite:

"The Scarlett 2i2 instrument input applies between +10dB and +55dB gain depending on the monitor position. The input impedance is 1MOhm. It sounds like even 10dB of gain is enough to clip the signal with your guitar."

With the gain all the way down, my guitar clipped.

Focusrite recommends an external unit to convert to line level.

The mic pre's sounded good for the price, unfortunately this unit wouldn't do everything I needed.